Previews

Mass Effect

We were invited to the BioWare offices for one last look at Mass Effect. How could we resist?

Spiffy:

Attractive custom character creation; expansive galaxy to explore; hours of adventure to keep you busy through the holidays.

Iffy:

Default Shepard beats Custom Shepard in the beauty contest; grainy filter may end up detracting from the art quality.

Last week, BioWare invited the gaming press to Edmonton in order to get one last look at the company's forthcoming role-playing game, Mass Effect. By all accounts, this is the acclaimed developer's most ambitious project to date, and according to the team, this is its best game yet. That's saying a lot, considering that BioWare, headed up by Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, is responsible for Baldur's Gate, its sequel, as well as the fan-favorite Star Wars RPG Knights of the Old Republic. Mass Effect is very nearly finished, otherwise the BioWare folks would be far too busy to host such a throng of journalists and field their many questions. During this final look at the game, we had the chance to explore the character creation options, play through many different areas, and get a better look at the nuts and bolts of one of the most highly anticipated games this year.

Captain Jean-Luc Shepard of the SSV Normandy

While we've been overwhelmed by a deluge of high-resolution Mass Effect images in the months leading up to this visit, we've primarily borne witness to the universe created by BioWare through the eyes of the default male Commander Shepard, a crew cut-wearin' space marine of ambiguous racial makeup with a tough-as-nails attitude, described by Muzyka as "Jack Bauer in space." After playing extensively with the character creation options, we found that the Shepard character can physically take many different forms, ranging from a bald, pale-skinned gentleman whose scars and wrinkles are a testament to years of experience, to a black lipstick-wearing goth girl with far too much eye makeup on and exaggerated features that could easily fit in a Tim Burton movie.

Character creation is a pain-free process that allows you to construct a face for your character that spans the spectrum of what's available for typical (and not-so typical) humans. No alien races here and nothing like pink or green skin to choose from. You also can't affect Shepard's body type at all. A male Shepard will always be strong of build, but never endowed with ungainly musculature from too many hours hitting the bench press. A female Commander will always wear form-fitting armor that reveals athletic, reasonably curvy proportions, without delving into unnatural-looking excess.

The cosmetic options are quite robust otherwise. You can affect the size and shape of the eyes, the depth of the brow, the character's complexion, and so on. It will be possible to make a great variety of characters based on real-life actors, like the Patrick Stewart look-alike we attempted, the only limitations being the lack of outrageous hairstyles and the aforementioned singular body type. The system works very much like that in Bethesda's Oblivion, with similar if not significantly better results. The default character appears to look slightly better than what you can make by playing with the sliders, but maybe we just need more practice making faces. In any case, your created character should blend in well with the rest of the game's cast, even when interacting with some of the brilliant alien character designs.

Regardless of what any given Commander Shepard looks like, it's the character's personality, the tangled formula of humanity, emotion, discipline and duty, that makes the Shepard character complete. The heart of the character comes from the player, and the difficult choices that must be made throughout Mass Effect will end up forming a personality for Shepard that will influence not only the characters that you interact with, but the fate of the galaxy.